'Health' of the Mother

Do the 56 percent of Americans who support abortion if the pregnancy puts the woman's mental health at risk not realize that having an abortion actually creates more mental health disturbances than carrying and delivering the baby? I find it curious that there is so little reported on the mental health disturbances in women who have had abortions. As a mental health professional, I feel it is important for men and women to understand the physical and emotional consequences of risky behaviors including abortion.

I have known people to travel the back roads of the earth and spend what some would
consider outrageous sums of money to adopt a child because they as a couple could not
conceive and there were no babies available in the states for them to choose.

rdaffron, I think I agree with you now, i need to take a stand one way or the other...So right here and now I'm taking the stand that the government should be neutral in all things, but not only in abortion, but also in murder, rape, robbery, pedophilia, kidnapping, etc. In fact, teenage girls who throw their newborns in the garbage should not be penalized for that choice including soldiers who kill innocent women and children. Nobody should be penalized. We'll all have freedom of choice in everything and let God be the judge.

Nins @ 10/17/2008

"Even though I am a Catholic who is against abortion, I can see the dangers of the highest court in the land interpreting the law through narrow eyes. This can't be good for America. Why not let the Protestants, the Jews or the Baptists control the Supreme Court? That sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn't it? Or how about the Buddhists (they might actually be more impartial). Perhaps we should hand over the Supreme Court to a Muslim majority? That would make us all scream, wouldn't it? Having a conservative Catholic majority is just as bad, if you stop to think about it."

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The Supreme Court came within ONE vote of taking away our unfettered CHOICE to own a gun.
Had Mr Obama been president and nominated is own type of Supreme Court justices...

Abortion is an issue of morality. If you are looking to politicians for morality, you are looking in the wrong direction.

I am a woman who has opposed abortion all her life. Ask anyone if it's okay to kill a baby right after being born, what would they say? Yes, it's fine, no big deal? Or would there be outrage to that answer? It's outrageous to think that a baby should be killed because it is too inconvenient. Just think of all the babies that are being adopted out of China for decades. At least there is a program there to help those mothers give their children a better life. The alternative is death.

On par with today's average "journalist", you missed hte point. McCain's point was the risk of "the mother's health" is used to justify abortion - in cases where it makes no sense...as in Barack Obama's "Born Alive" Bill or his Partial Birth Abortion stance. It simply makes no sense! A mother is more at risk, if you SAVE the child that survived the abortion?! HOW!? Or, a mother is more at risk if you DON'T partially deliver a baby and then stab it in the head with a 12inch blade?! How?!: The abortion fraud has been foisted upon women for too long, and we women need to fight this horrible and vile "culture". It is not a "right"; it is a scam. In the 60s, feminists decided that the only way to gain and keep access to the men's world was to "be like the men". This meant dressing like them (remember the 80's DressForSuccess suits?), looking like them, talking like them, acting like them, and trying to think like htem. The ultimate equality with the man was the Denial of the Uterus. Get pregnant? No problem...cut it out, gone, see? Just like the men again. Well, empowered and successful women of today understand that they no longer have to be "just like the men". We can dress with heels, lipstick and skirts - and still be taken seriously. We can all feminne emotion, compassion, nurturing to come through at work, and still keep our jobs. We are working mothers, and we are mothers of kids with special needs, and we can still have our work! Nothing is more counter to a woman's biology. her destiny, than harming her own child. Mothers would die for their children. Trying to convince a mother that the ability to off her own baby is some kind of "right" is twisted, vile, and corrupt logic.

I notice many people talk about what women "want" during pregnancy, as if the woman is the only person being affected by the "choice." I wonder how many of those people are thoughtful enough to consider that the baby deserves a right to life. Or are they just "not people" who don't deserve a chance at life? Sorry guys, but we've heard that argument before. We heard it regarding the Native Americans... and the blacks... and the Jews... and the Russian civilians. Enough is enough.

Let's not forget that McCain voted against Biden's efforts to establish protections for abused women. Let's not forget that Palin refused to pay for rape kits. Possibly in her case this was because rape kits use DNA techniques similar to the ones that show that over 98% of the three billion base pairs of human DNA are the same as chimpanzees. But more likely it is because she wants to brutalize raped women by keeping them from using Plan B. Perhaps what McCain and Palin want is the kind of brutal laws that Pentecostals like Palin and other ultra-right-wing Christians forced into place in El Salvador. Their impact has been summarized in the report "Persecuted" (2000), which is summarized by the Center for Reproductive Rights thus: "The report shows that a year and a half after El Salvador's new abortion law took effect in 1998, 69 cases involving illegal abortions had been brought before courts. Most involved poor, under-educated, young women who self-induced abortions by using clothes hangers, ingesting very high doses of birth control pills, antacids, caustic liquids or cytotec pills. In 23 of the cases, hospital personnel turned the women over to police after they arrived for medical treatment following incomplete abortions. . . . The law criminalizes abortion without exception, even to save the life of the pregnant woman or in cases of rape or incest." The result is that even women obtaining abortions face prison terms of up to 12 years. Just what the kind and compassionate people like McCain and Palin want, apparently. Brutalize the woman by raping her and then brutalize her by tempting her to have a back-alley illegal abortion that sends her to the hospital anyway, where her crime will be discovered so that she afterward can be sent to prison and brutalized more.

I would like to say that I agree w/Senator McCain. I work in the health care field and see MANY M.D.'s make decisions based on what the patient WANTS, not what is good for their health. So the descretion of the M.D. makes it too broad and I think they should have to have the agreement of @ least 3 M.D.'s that it would put the woman's health @ risk in order for it to be done!

I think McCain is spot on. Let's be real here. The Supreme Court "... allows abortion under any circumstance because the Supreme Court has defined 'health' to mean a general feeling of well being or age or familial conditions or psychological factors." THAT CAN MEAN ANYTHING!! Think about just how broad that definition of "health" is! A "general feeling of well-being"??? When you are 8 months pregnant, you never have a total feeling of well-being, so really any woman who is in her third trimester could get a late-term abortion under this "health exception". I think McCain is absolutely right when he used the air quotes. I don't think it was the smartest thing to do in a debate, but as for what he was trying to get across, he was correct.

I would like to say that I agree w/Senator McCain. I work in the health care field and see MANY M.D.'s make decisions based on what the patient WANTS, not what is good for their health. So the descretion of the M.D. makes it too broad and I think they should have to have the agreement of @ least 3 M.D.'s that it would put the woman's health @ risk in order for it to be done!